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Sep 14, 2011 By David Brusie Web Exclusive

Up All Night stars Will Arnett, Christina Applegate, and Maya Rudolph, is produced by Lorne Michaels, and was created by Saturday Night Live and Parks and Recreation writer Emily Spivey. So why does it fall so flat?

Up All Night‘s pilot embraces nearly every cliché about babies and parenthood. The cast—especially Arnett and Applegate as Chris and Reagan, the new parents in question—try their best, but the script doesn’t give them much to do.

There are some standout moments, such as Chris’s Freudian slips about his first day home alone with the baby—“Babe, worry. I can’t totally do this”—and it’s nice to see a series that treats the male half of a couple as capable, if hapless. Up All Night also gets points for the fact that Chris and Reagan aren’t a bickering sitcom couple, but spouses bonding through parenting mistakes.

Otherwise, this first episode is pretty dire. Some premises, such as a trip to the grocery store, wear thin before they start, and Rudolph’s character, an Oprah-like talk show host with only herself on her mind, abruptly becomes altruistic at the end of the episode.

However, there are reasons to cross your fingers: Up All Night reportedly underwent major last-minute retooling after Rudolph’s Bridesmaids success, and pilots are notoriously poor representations of their shows’ eventual quality. Here’s hoping Up All Night settles down and gives its talented actors a chance to do what they do best, with or without a baby: be funny. (www.nbc.com/up-all-night)

Author rating: 4/10